Sheilah E. Nicholas

“I Live Hopi, I Just Don't Speak It”—The Critical Intersection of Language, Culture, and Identity in the Lives of Contemporary Hopi Youth

Despite having been immersed in the Hopi culture throughout their lives, many of todays Hopi youth do not understand or speak their heritage language. This article highlights the notion of “affective enculturation”—the development of an emotional commitment to Hopi ideals—cultivated through the myriad practices that comprise the Hopi oral tradition. This ethnographic study focusing on the cultural and linguistic experiences of 3 Hopi youth revealed that (a) even without a strong origin in the language, youth learn to act, think, and feel Hopi through their active participation in their Hopi world and (b) language is only one of the many ways to experience and learn ones culture. Nevertheless, these youth contend that the Hopi language is fundamental to “fully” participating in and understanding the Hopi way of life—a finding that offers hope for reinvigoration and (re)acquisition of the language among all generations.

Reclaiming Indigenous Languages: A Reconsideration of the Roles and Responsibilities of Schools.

In this chapter, we offer a critical examination of a growing field of educational inquiry and social practice: the reclamation of Indigenous mother tongues. We use the term reclamation purposefully to denote that these are languages that have been forcibly subordinated in contexts of colonization (Hinton, 2011; Leonard, 2007). Language reclamation includes revival of a language no longer spoken as a first language, revitalization of a language already in use, and reversal of language shift (RLS), a term popularized by Joshua Fishman (1991) to describe the reengineering of social supports for intergenerational mother tongue transmission. All of these processes involve what Māori scholar Margie Kahukura Hohepa (2006) calls language regeneration, a term that speaks of “growth and regrowth,” recognizing that nothing “regrows in exactly the same shape that it had previously, or in exactly the same direction” (p. 294).

50(0) Years Out and Counting: Native American Language Education and the Four Rs

Fifty years after the U.S. Congress passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act (CRA), Native Americans continue to fight for the right “to remain an Indian” (Lomawaima & McCarty, 2006) against a backdrop of test-driven language policies that threaten to destabilize proven bilingual programs and violate hard-fought language rights protections such as the Native American Languages Act of 1990/1992. In this article we focus on the “four Rs” of Indigenous language education—rights, resources, responsibilities, and reclamation—forefronting the inherent sovereignty of Indigenous peoples in language education decision making. Drawing on our work together and our individual long-term ethnographic work with Native American communities, we present three case studies that illuminate larger issues of language rights, resources, responsibilities, and reclamation as they are realized in these communities. We conclude by “reflecting forward” (Winn, 2014) on language education possibilities and tensions, 50 years out from passage of the CRA and more than 500 years out from the original Indigenous-colonial encounter.

Practicing Living and Being Hopi: Language and Cultural Practices of Contemporary Hopi Youth

The epistemological origins of the Hopi way of life remain as the most reliable resource for cultural survival and persistence amid significant cultural and linguistic change. This chapter examines the life histories of three focal Hopi youth and their parents to illuminate the changes and maintenance of cultural and linguistic practices among Hopi families. The divergent ways each family adheres to cultivating and nurturing a Hopi identity for their children, manifested in the differing linguistic abilities of each youth, highlight the role of Western schools/schooling in the transitions from home to school and school to home. The ancestral Hopi culture model continues to compel as well as guide the Hopi people in practicing living and being Hopi in the contemporary context of change and continuity.

You remain present

Interestingly, today (March 19, 2016), Richard, as I readied to write this letter to you, and as is usually the case, I hit an unknown button on my laptop by accident and found myself in a longforgotten folder. Curious about “tasks” from the past, I opened one and found a familiar signature line: /rr/, your signature line to a friendly reminder to get our department Anthropology and Education Quarterly (AEQ) team reviews to you as soon as we could while also noting that it was spring break. It was as a new faculty member of this review team along with a cohort of doctoral students that I was invited by two of the best, you and your compadre, Dr. Luis Moll, to engage as a group of colleagues (faculty and students alike) as manuscript reviewers. Still getting accustomed to the title of “Dr.,” I recall a sincere appreciation for this unassuming but welcoming gesture from you, Richard. Moreover, this trip back in time surfaced a reflective moment that it was also your unassuming nature to blur the titles of faculty and students so that important collaborative and mentoring work could be accomplished. Other memories surfaced. Another welcoming gesture involved your reach back in time to your childhood in the Phoenix area. Aware of my cultural heritage of Hopi, you shared that your family lived next door to a Hopi family and that it was a child member of this family and your playmate who taught you to speak English. In the next breath, however, accompanied by a facial expression of clear distaste, you nonchalantly stated, “I don’t like piiki,” referring to the traditional Hopi waferthin blue corn bread—end of conversation. These memories are endearing and make me smile and reassure me that you are still present. You remain present in the fact that provocative questions you raised in seemingly casual faculty conversations and in student dissertation defense discussions continue to resonate for me. At one dissertation defense, you posed a question to a student in this way: “Let me ask you: When do you think a child begins to think critically?” This question opened the floodgates for me. I recall my own excited response; something to the effect of: “In Hopi society, I would say, a child begins critically thinking very early. I use the example of storytelling from my own childhood memories. During the winter months when Mother Earth is resting, families would come together for an evening with a village storyteller. The environment was conducive to creating wonder—the dark of night, a warm fire burning, parched corn (the Hopi version of popcorn) in yucca baskets for all to enjoy. When the evening ended, there was much to ponder when the ending of the story was not provided. I believe children were provided with the opportunity to engage in musing about the ending and the myriad possibilities of an ending that could be imagined long after the story had been told. I would say this setting provided the conditions for children who were present to engage in the process of critical thinking.” I have thanked you over and over again for this revelation into the critical thinking process of young children and particularly for the prospect of privileging aspects of Indigenous education and the significance of Indigenous oral tradition as a critical cognitive developmental mechanism. What will also resonate for me from here on, Richard, is your chapter—chapter 10—entitled, “The Empowerment of Language-Minority Students,” in Christine Sleeter’s, Empowerment Through Multicultural Education (Ruiz, 1991). In this chapter, you distinguish clearly between language and voice: Language, being “general, abstract, subject to arbitrary normalization ... has a life of its own—